Quoits!

[John Merhi]

Long before I ever got involved with disc golf, I was throwing round objects at a target. In eastern PA where I grew up, there is a game called quoits (pronounced - kwates). I didn't know it was a regional game until I moved to DC in 1988. In my PA hometown, everyone has a quoit set and everyone plays.

It's been called "indoor horseshoes" and scores just like horseshoes. The difference is, there's no defense in horseshoes, but there's defense in quoits. In horseshoes, you really can't knock your opponents horseshoe out of the pit. In quoits, you definitely try to knock your opponents quoit off the board. The two quoit boards are set 18 feet apart, hub to hub. Each quoit weighs 1 lb. Disc golfers are naturally attracted to the game as it's an "aim-and-shoot' kinda game.

Here are some links to check out. There's several variations of the game, but I'm a "slate board" quoit player. For slate board quoits, it's totally an eastern PA, western Jersey thing. Almost no one outside of this area has heard of it. For "dirt quoits" or traditional quoits, it's much better known. For my taste, traditional quoits isn't much different than horseshoes. In dirt quoits, you still can't knock the opponents quoit out of the pit, plus, you can't play indoors. Slate board is definitely the way to go... I like the defense aspect it brings plus I don't wanna be picking mud out of my shoes.

http://www.quoits.info/versions/slateboard.html
http://www.quoitfactory.com/quoit-faq.html
http://www.rubber-quoits.com/
http://www.quoitsdirect.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoits

Quoit freaks are just as freaked over their sport as disc golfers are over theirs. I brought my quoit set to Seneca Creek State Park DGC and the disc golfers took to it like they'd been playing all their life. Quoits is easy to learn to begin with, but disc golfers grasp the concept almost immediately. We have had some seriously fun and competetive matches. It's definitely a fun thing to do after the round is over.

Quoits! It's one of the funnest things you've never heard of.

 

[valkyriefb11]

I grew up in central Jersey, and quoits was always played at all family picnics. We always preferred it over horseshoes, although we never played it indoors. I think "don't play ball in the house" carried over to quoits in the family. The other thing I noticed is that the quoits you had in your links were rubber ... we always played with metal quoits.
When my grandfather moved to South Carolina, he took his quoits set with him and intdoduced it to his neighbors ... they all seemed to enjoy it. But Quoits is definitely a New Jersey/Eastern PA thing ... sorta like Trenton Pork Roll.

 

[discflinger]

We play jarts or "lawn darts" here. Only fun if you are able to be impaled.

 

[zud00]

I've never played quoites, but it looks like fun.

A game I have played a lot that would be somewhat similar to quoites is cornhole. It's played with two boards with a hole and 4 bean bags (filled with corn rather than beans hence the name "cornhole"). 3 points for in the hole, one point for on the board.

Another game which I have not played as much but came across recently is "Kan Jam." You throw a frisbee towards a "kan" and either try to hit it, fly it into the hole on the front or in from the top, or your partner can deflect it to hit the kan or hit it to deflect it in the either one of the holes. It is quite fun and most disc golfers should be able to pick up the game quickly if they can throw a frisbee very well.

Cornhole: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_bag_toss
Kan Jam: http://www.kanjam.com/

 

[discflinger]

Notice the beer in the red shirted gentleman's hand; essential for cornhole.